Watchers, carers, and administrators: the smart homes of tomorrow

How smart should a smart home be before it's worthy of the name? Diane Cook's …

A conceptual smart home with 17 components, including automated pet feeder.

Photograph by Washington State University

How smart should a smart home be before it's worthy of the name? To date, perhaps the term has been too readily applied to homes that are merely high-tech. Automated systems, remote control of appliances from mobile devices, TV and phone over IP—these are all welcome breakthroughs. These technologies are almost synonymous with the smart home and so-called intelligent buildings in general, but there's little or no intelligence to them. For a home to be considered smart, it must in a sense become a robot—a machine capable of, if not true intelligence (and certainly not sentience), sensing data, processing it, drawing conclusions of its own accord, and then acting upon those conclusions.

It's a distinction which Diane Cook of Washington State University's School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science is acutely aware of. Her research into smart homes goes well beyond presence-detecting light switches, IPTV, and automated garage doors. Cook is interested in homes that to all intents observe their residents and make decisions on their behalf for their own wellbeing. In some cases these decisions are simply for the purposes of convenience: one job less for the homeowner or their family. In other cases these may be decisions that, for a variety of possible reasons, the resident is incapable of making on their own. It's research that raises not only possibilities, but ethical questions and difficulties. Ars spoke to Cook about her work, and about the field of research more generally, to find out what sort of decisions our homes may be making for us in the not-too-distant future.

The intelligence, it is ambient

If you recognize this description of human-aware technology as ambient intelligence you're spot on. It's a term Cook readily applied to her work in a recent article in Science. Ambient computing is a theoretical computing paradigm that could follow once computing is truly pervasive and ubiquitous. Pervasive computing goes beyond the idea of a personal computer in every home, or even in every pocket—it's to do with chips and sensors in everyday objects and the Internet of Things. When computers are everywhere, ambient intelligence is what follows—at least in theory: a soft network of computers and devices (sometimes visible and recognizable, sometimes not) watching, thinking, and communicating for the betterment of humankind.

If ambient intelligence is next, it's logical that the home will be among the first places we experience it. But what will this mean? "The idea is that computer software playing the role of an intelligent agent perceives the state of the physical environment and residents using sensors, reasons about this state using artificial intelligence techniques, and then takes actions to achieve specified goals," writes Cook. Such goals include "maximizing comfort of the residents, minimizing the consumption of resources, and maintaining the health and safety of the home and resources."

Better than human?

Cook has observed that most "smart home" technology to date relies on the users creating their own rules to control their lights and heating systems. But Cook argues that the technology is already there to observe occupant behavior, identify trends, and automate on the occupant's behalf. Doing so removes the need for guesswork and intuition. It can result in smarter, more economic use of resources.

A lone resident in an apartment might be great at turning the heating up when they're too cold, and down when they're too hot. But they might be much less adept at setting the heating to the ideal set point for their desired comfort level in the first instance. A smart heating system would not only identify that set point on behalf of the user, but begin to ease up the heating before they've even noticed a chill in the air—depending on the time of year and external weather conditions, of course.

Is the system smarter than the occupant? Of course not. Is it better able to make decisions that will bring down energy bills? Very possibly, if only because it isn't spending processing cycles on what's for lunch, or how to worm out of tomorrow's meeting. This may be a very basic, simple-to-implement example, but that's not to say it exists. The ability to identify, assess, and then act is not widely found in actual homes, Cook asserts. And, Cook told us, complexity is not a prerequisite. "Simpler is better. Allowing your home to automate control of devices does not have to be complex. However, it can allow the home to time expensive operations (e.g., laundry, water heater) when renewable energy is available or automate control of devices to turn them off when they are not needed for your activities."

House M.D.

But in fact the same principles can be applied to the care of the ill or the infirm. Cook points to research that suggests ambient intelligent homes could help to identify the onset of dementia symptoms (by observing, recording and analyzing occupant mobility patterns) as well as screen young children for autism.

"Our project is going one small step further by recognizing and reporting on occurrence of a more detailed battery of activities and correlating changes in behavior with cognitive and physical health. We are also starting to automate assessment of cognitive health, but this is very much in the research stage." And perhaps more intriguing... "We and other groups are designing reminder-based interventions to help individuals initiate important activities and promote healthy behavior."

Your next refrigerator might kindly remind you to go for that run you'd decided to put off until tomorrow (it won't have to ask, it'll know). It won't deposit your weekly Mars bar unless you do. Hopefully less likely is next-gen social housing that can enforce cold turkey regimens on unwilling heroin addicts.

The watcher in your pocket

But if this sounds like the distant future, Cook points out that the technology to monitor occupants through wearable electronics is fast becoming ubiquitous. In fact there's a good chance you have a highly sophisticated monitoring device on your person at this very moment: your smartphone. "Wearable sensors provide a variety of information," Cook told Ars. "Many include accelerometers (as do phones) which provide constant readings of acceleration in the X, Y, and Z directions. Phones also have gyros which help provide orientation."

Cook even suggests that smartphone cameras and microphones may also be put to use as data-gathers. "There are clever ways to share information between the home and the phone so that activity-aware services can be provided anywhere, for example, to monitor your well-being and to automate interventions." That's how your fridge knew you hadn't been for a run: your iPhone told it (and it's not necessarilya given that apps ask permission before mining your data).

With the mining of data on such a scale comes the prospect of it being put to more nefarious ends (both real and imagined). "Most people have a perceived issue with the security of data, because they want to maintain privacy and are not sure what all can be done with information," Cook said. "Some examples of real issues are insurance companies using gathered information to change your rates, 'cyber cat burglars' using behavioral data to know when to rob your home, and identity thieves wreaking havoc."

The needs of the many

But the hardware is available and the software sufficiently robust to implement smart home technology to beneficial ends today, with one very specific caveat. In our simple scenario of a smarter heating system, we were dealing with a lone resident. Ambient intelligence in the home becomes much more difficult when you introduce more occupants, Cook suggests. "Smart home technologies are pretty robust now in terms of data collection, identification of basic activities, and some automation, for simple conditions (one resident, structured lifestyle). For complex situations with multiple residents, pets, guests, interruptions, this gets much harder and is an ongoing research problem." If you want to live in a smart home any time soon, your best bet may be to live alone.

35 Reader Comments

Geez. This is another one of those brain storms that ultimately turns into a forgotten brain fart.. No one will want or need any of this crap, much like HD radio. It's perceived to be the greatest thing since sliced bread by those who conceive it, but never quite embraced by anyone else. We all have brains, i think we can manage on our own around the house. I don't need a smart house. I'm smart.

Geez. This is another one of those brain storms that ultimately turns into a forgotten brain fart.. No one will want or need any of this crap, much like HD radio. It's perceived to be the greatest thing since sliced bread by those who conceive it, but never quite embraced by anyone else. We all have brains, i think we can manage on our own around the house. I don't need a smart house. I'm smart.

I agree. I went to buy some of this "smart home" technology and can't really think of a use for it. I can't find a wish list for anything above a programmable thermostat and a $4 timer for the lights.

I live in a relatively "normal" climate, but if I lived in a hurricane or tornado-prone area, I might want automatic storm shutters, garage door closer, etc. So I'm sure some people will find uses for this technology as options improve and prices drop.

I want the refrigerator magnet that orders the pizza. That's some useful technology in my book.

Ok... I have "light sensors", "windows and door sensors", "HVAC control - computer controlled", "lighting control", "automatic watering", "mailbox sensor", 2 "driveway sensors", "security system", "motion sensors", and an automated cat litter box. I also have 3 direct Internet connected servers and each one monitors the others, sending me email if one of them stops responding. I also have automated, over WiFi, backups of all systems to a RAID 2TB drive. My computer monitored weather station will send me email if it's warmer outside than inside, so I can go out and enjoy it. I can turn on/off my spa from anywhere in the world (with password protection, of course).

Geez. This is another one of those brain storms that ultimately turns into a forgotten brain fart.. No one will want or need any of this crap, much like HD radio. It's perceived to be the greatest thing since sliced bread by those who conceive it, but never quite embraced by anyone else. We all have brains, i think we can manage on our own around the house. I don't need a smart house. I'm smart.

<rant mode="all in good humor">Nobody wants to live in a world like Star Trek where the computer manages all the tedium, freeing the minds of humanity to aspire to and accomplish ever greater heights, right? We're too good for that -- we'd rather suffer through boring everyday responsibilities that would be best handled by machines with our precious egos intact.

The purpose of smart home technology is to save energy and time as well as improve convenience. Suppose you spend five seconds fishing for the light switch every time you get up instead of having an automated light switch triggered based on the time of your first appointment and your typical sleep schedule. Over an adult lifetime of 70 years, that's almost 1.5 days just spent looking for the light switch. In addition to saving that 1.5 days, you can improve your health, your sleep habits, and so on using an intelligent lighting system that automatically compensates for lost sunlight during the winter and on cloudy days, making sure you get enough light to regulate sleep and work effectively.

Now imagine someone with a movement-restricting disease. A smart home with presence-detecting lights and appliances would save them immeasurable agony spent while .

Besides, nobody's making the Luddites buy these things. This technology does nothing to harm you, so don't get in the way of those who actually want it.</rant>

I have noticed that many times that my house's heat comes on when the outside temperature is higher than the house's internal temperature (and vice versa for a/c). In other words, it is more efficient to just open the windows and get fresh air, but the furnace (or a/c) runs anyway unless I manually intervene.

Since running the heat or a/c is very expensive, I would give high value to a system that automatically opens vents and starts fans when outside air is a cheaper means to reach the desired temperature.

Ok... I have "light sensors", "windows and door sensors", "HVAC control - computer controlled", "lighting control", "automatic watering", "mailbox sensor", 2 "driveway sensors", "security system", "motion sensors", and an automated cat litter box. I also have 3 direct Internet connected servers and each one monitors the others, sending me email if one of them stops responding. I also have automated, over WiFi, backups of all systems to a RAID 2TB drive. My computer monitored weather station will send me email if it's warmer outside than inside, so I can go out and enjoy it. I can turn on/off my spa from anywhere in the world (with password protection, of course).

Is my house "smart"? I'm working on it.

What's your uptime on all of this automation? Does the benefit you obtain from it justify the time spent maintaining it? I'm not judging you. I enjoy the intellectual effort involved in comparing solutions and designing the one that's right for me, especially rooting around on the web on Saturday's comparing discreet night vision cameras with motion detection capabilities as a security system. If I wanted a low-maintenance setup I would just get a dog.

Geez. This is another one of those brain storms that ultimately turns into a forgotten brain fart.. No one will want or need any of this crap, much like HD radio. It's perceived to be the greatest thing since sliced bread by those who conceive it, but never quite embraced by anyone else. We all have brains, i think we can manage on our own around the house. I don't need a smart house. I'm smart.

<rant mode="all in good humor">Nobody wants to live in a world like Star Trek where the computer manages all the tedium, freeing the minds of humanity to aspire to and accomplish ever greater heights, right? We're too good for that -- we'd rather suffer through boring everyday responsibilities that would be best handled by machines with our precious egos intact.

The purpose of smart home technology is to save energy and time as well as improve convenience. Suppose you spend five seconds fishing for the light switch every time you get up

The reward just doesn't match up with the investment. I wouldn't mind having more sophisticated HVAC zones in my house but that's something that a few overpriced Raspberry PIs is going to give me. Mindlessly throwing silicon at things really isn't going to achieve much of anything.

We would get far better mileage out of construction codes that have energy efficiency in mind. 2x6 construction and better insulation will get you a lot farther than a bunch of toys that require environmentally unfriendly manufacturing proceses.

Hardware is an IMSAI 8080, with a terminal, speech synth, modem, X10 and some sort of speech recognition hardware. Software seems to be totally bespoke, written in basic, and squeezed into the 52K of RAM in the IMSAI. I'm guessing Bill Hawkins programmed most of the workflows as procedures, rather than making a framework out of it.

That article is the only reference to it I can find. I'd really love to hear if anyone else knows what happened to the author and Breslin, and whether it went anywhere beyond this.

I am surprised the 'smart' home is focused on energy savings and convenience only.I personally include security and entertainment in this definition.If you invest in a home, you want to protect it, its content and its inhabitants.Entertainment might be covered by the convenience part, but it is so big these days that it should probably stand on its own.

But the part about the fridge refusing you a mars bar is just very bad science-fiction and has nothing to do with home automation. That's exactly the kind of Big Brother thing or annoying inconvenience that nobody wants in a smart home. If you can't just open your fridge and pick up anything you want from the shelves, quality of life and privacy rights are seriously impacted. Plus such a fridge that stores items individually and has a highly fallible mechanical retrieving device and dispenser would cost about as much as the house.

When the I2C bus came out, I thought we would see phenomenal advances and standardization in the home automation area, but this didn't happen. There's a bunch of I2C sensors, but nothing integrated or that a non-electronician home user can use. We're still light years from home automation.

There's no real model for any of it. Too much still falls to the user to configure, or train, or adjust. The balance is often in favor of just hitting the lights when you leave the room and scheduling the laundry or hvac with their built in timers.

Sensors and controls we got. And there are a zillion protocols. What's needed is software.

The reward just doesn't match up with the investment. I wouldn't mind having more sophisticated HVAC zones in my house but that's something that a few overpriced Raspberry PIs is going to give me. Mindlessly throwing silicon at things really isn't going to achieve much of anything.

We would get far better mileage out of construction codes that have energy efficiency in mind. 2x6 construction and better insulation will get you a lot farther than a bunch of toys that require environmentally unfriendly manufacturing proceses.

This is a very good point. Quite a number of new construction out there is built to make a quick buck. No amount of technology will save you as much money in drafty, poorly-insulated houses as fixing the insulation problems.

I thought of getting an internet-enabled thermostat for my place, but then realized that I am not really going to be changing settings from bed; the extra money didn't seem like a good trade off for not having to walk a bit. And guess what, I programmed the thing once, and save for one or two times where I left on some day-long trip and forgot to turn the heat down, I didn't have to worry about the unit.

Geez. This is another one of those brain storms that ultimately turns into a forgotten brain fart.. No one will want or need any of this crap, much like HD radio. It's perceived to be the greatest thing since sliced bread by those who conceive it, but never quite embraced by anyone else. We all have brains, i think we can manage on our own around the house. I don't need a smart house. I'm smart.

This. Motion detecting light switches are cool because they are self-contained and don't need a connection to anything but power (which a regular switch would need anyway). I would rather open my own drapes and windows than have a computer do it for me. It seems like a lot more effort than it's worth - for the rich and famous only.

Geez. This is another one of those brain storms that ultimately turns into a forgotten brain fart.. No one will want or need any of this crap, much like HD radio. It's perceived to be the greatest thing since sliced bread by those who conceive it, but never quite embraced by anyone else. We all have brains, i think we can manage on our own around the house. I don't need a smart house. I'm smart.

This. Motion detecting light switches are cool because they are self-contained and don't need a connection to anything but power (which a regular switch would need anyway). I would rather open my own drapes and windows than have a computer do it for me. It seems like a lot more effort than it's worth - for the rich and famous only.

Suppose you spend five seconds fishing for the light switch every time you get up instead of having an automated light switch triggered based on the time of your first appointment and your typical sleep schedule. Over an adult lifetime of 70 years, that's almost 1.5 days just spent looking for the light switch.

Or I could play one less video game, get several days back, *and* save $60. There. With a mere thought I have demolished your fancy schmancy light switch. ;-)

Geez. This is another one of those brain storms that ultimately turns into a forgotten brain fart.. No one will want or need any of this crap, much like HD radio. It's perceived to be the greatest thing since sliced bread by those who conceive it, but never quite embraced by anyone else. We all have brains, i think we can manage on our own around the house. I don't need a smart house. I'm smart.

+1.No need for more cheap electronic crap made in China that is exhausting Earth resources and polluting the environment.

Geez. This is another one of those brain storms that ultimately turns into a forgotten brain fart.. No one will want or need any of this crap, much like HD radio. It's perceived to be the greatest thing since sliced bread by those who conceive it, but never quite embraced by anyone else. We all have brains, i think we can manage on our own around the house. I don't need a smart house. I'm smart.

+1.No need for more cheap electronic crap made in China that is exhausting Earth resources and polluting the environment.

Geez. This is another one of those brain storms that ultimately turns into a forgotten brain fart.. No one will want or need any of this crap, much like HD radio. It's perceived to be the greatest thing since sliced bread by those who conceive it, but never quite embraced by anyone else. We all have brains, i think we can manage on our own around the house. I don't need a smart house. I'm smart.

This. Motion detecting light switches are cool because they are self-contained and don't need a connection to anything but power (which a regular switch would need anyway). I would rather open my own drapes and windows than have a computer do it for me. It seems like a lot more effort than it's worth - for the rich and famous only.

Maybe you have a lot of drapes and windows?

Drapes are nothing, live in Germany, it's all about roladens; no geek can do without, completely blocks out the evil, evil sunlight.

My perspectives aren’t too far from what Mr. Holloway wrote about. They came from introducing IBM to the Smart Home market in 1994, helping it launch IBM Home Director, and retiring in 1999 to start CAZITech, a Digital Home consulting firm.

The “Smart Home” concept has been around for some 40 years, but it never was able to cross the chasm from an industry niche of professional installation in high-end custom homes to mass market consumers. One reason is that any new device or change of behavior required a technician to come out and reprogram the house rules again.

As Holloway describes, a truly Smart home is one that’s aware of its surroundings from various sensors for light, temperature, sound, smells (smoke or CO2), motion, etc. A Smart home learns occupant behavior and preferences and adapts automatically or upon command (by voice, button or gesture interface). And a Smart home communicates in ways occupants prefer, on a device they have at the time. But there are many problems with even that vision. A big one is that automation cost and effort aren’t justified in many cases.

When I moved to Austin, I built a 3,200 sq.ft. two-story home as a living laboratory to study the technologies, my technophobe wife, and typical consumer reactions. The local paper did a 2-page feature article on my home, which at the time was automated with X-10 ActiveHome, the precursor to IBM Home Director. Several (rules-based) subsystems were integrated and automated, including security, HVAC, lighting, fish pump, etc.

Later, after retiring and growing empty-nested, we downsized to a much smaller one-story home, and even though I installed the structured wiring, I never implemented much automation. At bedtime I could just glance around and see if the doors were locked and lights were out. I no longer needed that one button to put the house to sleep, set back the thermostat, arm the security, and turn off the lights. It just wasn’t justified in the smaller home.

The new NEST thermostat comes close to learning consumer behavior, but it doesn’t know if I’m cold because I just finished eating ice cream or if I’m hot because I just finished vacuuming. Without sensing that using some sort of skin patch to measure surface temperature, no thermostat would ever get it right. I adjust mine manually several times a day; it’s just steps away.

Besides the fact that homes have too many devices and sensors and networks with different protocols from too many different manufacturers with different objectives, there’s no clean way to show consumers the value proposition of an integrated Smart Home. Retailers like BestBuy learned to combine big television screens, electronics, and surround-sound speakers so users could “experience” home theater benefits, but that’s nearly impossible to do with Smart Home technology, especially when artificial intelligence learning is applied. Although I know how to get around that problem, I’ll stop now rather than make this comment longer. ‘Hope this perspective helps.

I think the real application of this will be large office buildings. Where as has always been the trend in the past, replacing important, but unskilled human jobs with automation. Fixed costs, and replacing variable expences with fixed repair costs.

Hardware is an IMSAI 8080, with a terminal, speech synth, modem, X10 and some sort of speech recognition hardware. Software seems to be totally bespoke, written in basic, and squeezed into the 52K of RAM in the IMSAI. I'm guessing Bill Hawkins programmed most of the workflows as procedures, rather than making a framework out of it.

That article is the only reference to it I can find. I'd really love to hear if anyone else knows what happened to the author and Breslin, and whether it went anywhere beyond this.

The movie The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, produced in 1969, featured a computerized home automation demo that would open and close windows, etc. based on weather conditions.

I've dabbled with various home automation technologies for over 10 years now. While automating light switches and outlets can be interesting for controlling things, I think the author of the article nailed the critical nuance, and apparently it's flown over the head of most of the commenters: automation and *augmentation* that enhances your everyday living, while simultaneously being transparent.

I find it fascinating that despite that, three of the comments are related to heating and cooling. Indeed, of all the gadgets and technologies I have played with, the Nest programmable thermostat has impressed me the most of anything I have owned or tried. Although still somewhat limited feature-wise when compared to traditional home automation varieties of replacement thermostats, so far the Nest has been the most useful. While it is a programmable thermostat, it very may be the first one that you don't really need to program. With it's occupancy sensor, and through integration with my home wifi, ubiquitous access from wherever I am, it actual learns and adjusts to my patterns.

If that was all it would be useful - but they are continuing to enhance it. The latest update to it's software (automatic - remember my reference to integration with my wifi?) added, among other things, a very handy energy use graph that very plainly and graphically shows how the combination of your activity, schedule, and adjustments either save or cost you money - it's absolutely brilliant and provides a very useful feedback loop that helps promote small changes in your habits that reap major rewards.

At $250, the initial investment can be pricy. However, in the four months I've had it, I have easily saved at least $50 in energy costs. This summer with their AirWave feature (again, smart - if the environment is too humid, it doesn't use it - if it's dry enough, you get extra savings - the key - it's all automatic!) if I continue to average the same monthly savings, it will easily pay for itself in well under two years. Not a bad return on investment - and with added convenience of remote control and monitoring of useage. My only complaint is the initial high price has allowed me to only replace one of my two thermostats so far - and the geeky side of me is annoyed it's rather iOS-like in that I can't integrate it with my other home automation toys (yet - hopefully it's temporary). But it does do what it's creators claim - it's actually exceeded my expectations. Indeed, the next time I visit my parents I will be taking one with me to install at their house...

If you hated programming the clock in your VCR, yet wish to save some serious $$ on your power bill as well as helping the overall ecology of our society (HVAC represents a significant load on our energy infrastructure - which is predominantly fossil-fuel based) I highly recommend looking into taking the simple exercise of upgrading your thermostat. You might be amazed at just how such a seemingly trivial thing can have a major impact - even if you don't necessarily pay attention to it much past the initial installation.

I can only hope others are inspired by the Nest approach as well as the ideas expressed in this article - it would certainly make things more interesting indeed! And it would be far more useful than the limited hacking about that has been going on until now. Self learning and adjusting technologies certainly have a significant role to play going forward.

How smart is NEST? It's proximity sensing and ability to learn eliminates manual programming, but sometimes manual programming is better. Does it know that you're hosting a party or that you just finished eating ice cream or vacuuming (from previous post)? Can it respond to changes in weather forecasts? Does it know that it's a nice Spring day and you want to keep the windows open? Does it know that today's pollen count is high and you're alergic? Does it know the current cost per KWh from the electric utility just changed? Does it know about other major appliances in use, such as the washer/dryer, and schedule its own cycles accordingly? No, of course not. It's just not THAT smart. But I am, and that's why I set my thermostat manually.

The same thing goes for automatic lawn sprinklers. Mine is programmable and has a rain sensor, but it doesn't know about weather forecasts and city water restrictions. It's just not THAT smart.

How smart is NEST? It's proximity sensing and ability to learn eliminates manual programming, but sometimes manual programming is better.

Yup - and you can enter a manual program. In fact, it's far and away the easiest thermostat I've EVER programmed as far as the scheduling. Mainly because I didn't have to do it on the thermostat Not only can I do it over the web, but they have a great free iOS app that is optimized for both the iPhone and iPad.

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Does it know that you're hosting a party or that you just finished eating ice cream or vacuuming (from previous post)?

Not sure why it needs to know that - all it needs to really know is if your home or not.

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Can it respond to changes in weather forecasts?

Again, what would being able to do that bring to the table? It does know (because it's connected to the Internet) when you have a variation from your normal pattern - either less or more - is caused by weather, and that's reflected in the energy report.

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Does it know that it's a nice Spring day and you want to keep the windows open?

How's it reasonably supposed to know that? You still need to turn it off in that situation. If I could integrate it through my home automation system which is already integrated with my alarm system then yes - since it would be integrated and know when I had a window or door open it could shut itself off. I think I'm a fraction of a fraction of the total possible user base thought

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Does it know that today's pollen count is high and you're alergic?

Again, that's kind of redundant to the open door/window requirement...

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Does it know the current cost per KWh from the electric utility just changed? Does it know about other major appliances in use, such as the washer/dryer, and schedule its own cycles accordingly?

And how many people volunteer for the utility programs that give you a discount if you let them control your HVAC? What's that? All five of them?

However, it does make it ridiculously easy to enter my HVAC runtime into an awesome little utility tracking app I have on my iPhone.

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No, of course not. It's just not THAT smart. But I am, and that's why I set my thermostat manually.

I'm not sure why you think it's all one (automatic) or the other (manual). Nest is good enough to cover 90% of my use. And within that 90% I've already saved some significant coin. Without having to do anything other than hang it on the wall. When it's not smart enough to handle all your contrived use cases, it still fits that model too.

That's money I would have left on the table.

How you can argue against that boggles my mind....

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The same thing goes for automatic lawn sprinklers. Mine is programmable and has a rain sensor, but it doesn't know about weather forecasts and city water restrictions. It's just not THAT smart.

Yup, but it's smart enough that if you do nothing it won't be watering in the rain.

Again, I don't understand this binary argumentative line of reasoning that "if it can't meet 100% of my requirements right now as well as any crazy thing I can think up in the future it's complete junk and I must poop on it"

I'm surprised you haven't scrapped and resold your sprinkler system since you've already admitted it's flawed and your smarter than it is

DocNo, Unless you work for NEST, I don’t understand your reaction to my critique and don’t want to get into an online dispute, especially if you don’t know why I asked each rhetorical question. My purpose was to support the author’s premise for his article, which ponders how smart a smart home should be before it’s worthy of the name.

Admittedly, NEST is smarter than a manual thermostat and most programmable thermostats. They all can sense temperature, but what makes NEST unique is its cool design, a proximity detector, and the ability to learn some patterns of consumer behavior. But NEST doesn’t integrate with other home subsystems (yet), so it can’t sense other things. It can’t sense a fire and shut off the HVAC to avoid spreading poisonous gasses around and fueling the fire. Even the nonprogrammable thermostat in my old home could do that, because HVAC, lighting, and security were all integrated, although rules-based.

My automated home, with its integrated but old-style thermostat, also contributed to significantly lower monthly energy bills that were half of what they were in my previous house of half the size. But other factors contributed too. The new home was newer, with better insulation and more efficient appliances. And the city-owned utility in Austin charged less per KWh than the private utility in Dallas. My point is it’s often hard to make good apples & oranges comparisons.

I also stressed that smaller homes need less automation and “smarts” than larger ones. Through my work at IBM, I was involved in projects that were much further along the Intelligent Agent "Smarts" curve than NEST. My favorite never made it to market but would have blown the doors off of anything I’ve seen since, over the last 10+ years. Why it never made it is another story.

THE BRAIN? Where should sensors reside, and where should learned intelligence reside? Sensors can be put into everything with a digital heartbeat and even in dumb devices with no power, by using RFID and low-power wireless like ZigBee, Z-Wave and Bluetooth-LE that can power sensors for years on a single, hearing aid-sized battery. But should the intelligence reside there too? Should the thermostat keep its learned behaviors to itself or share?

From an engineering point of view, intelligence can go anywhere, but for maximum benefit, all devices should have access to it. Now imagine a Smart Home that has dozens or hundreds of sensors, has learned occupant patterns, personal traits, and ways they like to communicate. And now imagine that years worth of that recorded knowledge is stored remotely in a trusted Internet service that the house, or an authorized user, can tap. The company that implements that vision can established a huge barrier to entry since competing products wouldn’t have the benefit of “experience” with the occupants. The occupants also wouldn’t be tied to an automated home with the intelligence stored locally, because it could easily follow them to the new home.

NO WINNER YET?With so many big players in this space (Cisco, GE, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Panasonic, Philips and more), one would think that one of them would have figured out how to take this niche market concept mainstream by now, after 40 years. But they haven't. That's because there are many, many missing pieces in the Smart Home vision, and most of them I never mentioned. It's just not that easy, but we're getting there, one smart device and network connection at a time.